eDiscovery Daily Blog

• May 20, 2015

According to Norton Rose Fulbright’s Litigation Trends Annual Survey for 2015 released last week, companies in the United States continue to deal with, and spend more on litigation. From an eDiscovery standpoint, the survey showed that more than half of respondents preserve and collect data from employee mobile devices and use technology assisted review, and a clear majority of respondents still rely on self-preservation to fulfill preservation obligations for at least some cases.

Here are some interesting statistics from the report:

RESPONDENT PROFILE

Here is a profile of the respondents in the survey.

• There were 803 total corporate counsel participants from 26 countries, 82% of which were either General Counsel (46%), Associate/Deputy/Assistant GC (26%) or Head of Litigation (10%). 52% of respondents were from the US.
• Nearly two-thirds (65%) of the companies surveyed, were billion dollar companies with $1 billion or more in gross revenue. 41% of the billion dollar companies have revenues of $5 billion or more.
• The respondents were fairly evenly distributed among industries, with Technology and Innovation (29%), Financial Institutions (28%) and Energy (20%) the top three industries participating.

LITIGATION TRENDS

The report provided some interesting findings with regard to the number and distribution of cases as well as corporate litigation budgets.

Litigation Case Counts and Distribution

• 42% of all respondents indicated that more than 5 lawsuits/proceedings were commenced against them last year, in the US, that number was 55%. 13% of all respondents indicated that more than 50(!) lawsuits/proceedings were commenced against them last year, in the US, that number was 18%. The number of lawsuits filed against US respondents’ companies in the past 12 months was very stable, with no significant change since 2010.
• 26% of all respondents indicated that they had one or more lawsuits with more than $20 million at issue, for larger organizations, that number was 40%.
• Respondents were given a list of more than 20 categories of pending litigation their companies faced over the past 12 months, and asked to select the top three to five. Contracts (38%) and Labor/Employment (37%) matters received, by far, the most selections from respondents.
• 25% of all respondents expect the number of legal disputes for their company to increase over the next 12 months.

Litigation Budgets

• Among all survey respondents, the median litigation budget (excluding costs of settlement and judgments) is $1.2 million annually, while the mean litigation budget annually is $11.6 million.
• In the US, 69% of organizations spend $1 million or more on litigation and 25% spend $10 million or more.
• 32% of larger companies with $1 billion or more in revenue spent $10 million or more on litigation.

EDISCOVERY TRENDS

The report showed a majority of respondents preserve and collect data from employee mobile devices and use technology assisted review, and a clear majority of respondents still rely on self-preservation to fulfill preservation obligations for at least some cases. Heck, over a third of respondents even have cross-border discovery.

Cross-Border Discovery

• 35% of respondents have conducted cross-border discovery within the last 12 months, with that number jumping to 54% for companies with $5 billion or more of annual revenue.

Mobile Device Preservation and Collection

• 53% of overall respondents had to preserve and/or collect data from a mobile device, with 62% of US respondents doing so. 16% of all respondents reported having to preserve and/or collect data from a mobile device in 100% of their matters.

Self-Preservation

• Overall, 74% of respondents rely on individuals preserving their own data (i.e., self-preservation) in at least some of their cases, with 29% relying on self-preservation in 100% of their cases.
• When not relying on self-preservation, 62% of respondents say they depend on IT to collect data sources, with 22% relying on discovery vendors.

Technology Assisted Review

• More than half (57%) of all respondents are using technology assisted review for at least some of their matters.
• 79% of larger companies surveyed use technology assisted review, up from 43% two years ago.
• Of those companies utilizing technology assisted review, 19% use it in all of their matters and 42% use it for half or more of their matters.

There are plenty more interesting stats and trends in the report, which is free(!). To download your own copy of the report, click here. To see how this year’s report compares with our coverage from two years ago, click here.

So, what do you think? Do any of those trends surprise you? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.